UN helicopters start to patrol Liberia's borders

Helicopter gunships attached to the UN peacekeeping force in Liberia have begun regular patrols of the country's borders to control illegal logging and other unauthorised cross-border movements, Souren Seradayrian, the deputy head of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has announced. "We are flying all over the borders to make sure that whether timbers are being allegedly exported into neighbouring countries," he told IRIN in an interview on Tuesday night. An UNMIL spokesman said Russian-built helicopter gunships were being used to conduct daily patrols along the land border with Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Seradayrian said these air patrols would be reinforced by an UNMIL presence on the ground along the borders shortly. "Very soon we will be posting military observers to monitor the borders for any illegal activities," he said, adding that the border monitors would be particularly on the lookout for weapons smuggling. In a further move to assert UN tighter control over Liberia's three armed factions during the run-up to disarmament, Seradayrian announced that former combatants would no longer be allowed to carry guns in any parts of the interior where UN peacekeepers have been deployed. The capital Monrovia was declared a weapons-free zone soon after UN forces began to deploy there last year. Now the same principle has been extended to every location in Liberia where peacekeepers are stationed. "It is no longer allowed for them to carry weapons wherever there are UN forces. It is not accepted and will not be tolerated", Seradayrian said. The United Nations slapped a ban on Liberian timber exports last year to prevent former president Charles Taylor from using the foreign exchange derived from logging activities to buy arms in contravention of a UN embargo. However, a Liberian environmental group, the Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU), reported last week that the Togba Timber Company was still illegally exporting timber from Maryland county near the border with Cote d'Ivoire with the complicity of the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) rebel movement. UNMIL forces are not yet present on the ground in southeastern Liberia, which remains under MODEL control. There have been several calls for the lifting of the timber sanctions, since nearly half of the government's revenue is generated from the logging sector. But Seradayrian said the ban on exports should remain in place until the transitional government led by Gyude Bryant could put proper control mechanisms in place for the transparent and sustainable use of the country's forest resources. "For example, there must be clear cut legislation on the ways concessions are given, the sustainability and replacement of the trees, the ways they are being exported, where the income goes and where the taxes go," he said. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a post conflict environmental assessment of Liberia published last week that the country's forest cover had been reduced from 38 percent to 31 percent as a result of uncontrolled logging during the past 14 years of civil war.